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Bachmannâ��s latest invention: Obama has nationalized 51% of the economy

Posted: Apr 12, 2010

By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, April 11th, 2010 -- 9:03 pm

Michele Bachmann must have missed her calling: instead of becoming a fiction writer, she took to politics.

Though the two professions do have some overlap, namely incremental story-telling methodologies, Bachmann seems like an individual who'd do much better spinning a web of complete fantasy as opposed to tying rhetorical inventions to anything containing an element of truth.

As many fantasy enthusiasts have discovered, facts can be sticky things.

Take, for example, Bachmann's Sunday appearance on right-wing message outlet Fox News. Speaking to television personality Chris Wallace, the Minnesota Republican congresswoman claimed that under President Obama the U.S. government had absorbed 51 percent of the nation's private economy, thereby, in Bachmann's mind, validating her claim that Obama has "anti-American" tendencies.

Her claim about the economy is, of course, wildly untrue.

The remainder of the article AND VIDEO can be found at:

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0411/bachmanns-latest-invention-obama-nationalized-51-economy/

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OMG where do they find all these nut cases? - Wing-Nuts

[ In Reply To ..]
The right seems to go out of their way to find the looniest of the looney...

Well, nobody is getting cheated, that's for sure! LOL. (nm) - Nikki

[ In Reply To ..]
NM

You May Find this site interesting. It lists financial institutions - Backwards Typist

[ In Reply To ..]
how much was allocated to them and how much was paid back.

You can also look up the agreements between these institutions and the goverment.

http://bailout.propublica.org/programs/1-capital-purchase-program

Then you can also go to the Scorecard for outflow and inflow.

There are so many links on this website, it would take all day,if not more, to check out everything.

http://bailout.propublica.org/programs/1-capital-purchase-program

Also, at the below LINK is their main page.

I agree with her on one thing. the VAT will ruin the economy. - Backwards Typist

[ In Reply To ..]

I'm hoping it does not get passed. It will cause complete chaos. The goverment keeps telling us to spend money but what they fail to realize is that the average American nowadays has no money, only the rich. The average American is struggling to pay their every day bills without any relief. Wages are going down, not up (with the exception ofa few places), and to add another tax on top of the percentage of tax(es) we pay now, would only hurt us more. Worse yet, it would be a hidden tax, so we wouldn't even know how much tax we are really paying. Without people being able to buy products, companies cannot prosper and if companies can't prosper, they start to lay off their workers. It's a Catch 22.

Well, I think its going to happen. Obama can try to - sneak the VAT in there right under the nose

[ In Reply To ..]
of the people. Sounds just like him, all while still ACTING as if he did not raise taxes on the middle class. What gets me is how the hateful left constantly calls the right looney, yet to me, the loons are the ones falling for these tricks from Obama! They need to wake up!

Its not on the table in any way, shape or form. VAT was mentioned - in a conversation. Thats all there is.

[ In Reply To ..]
Bachmann is doing what she does best. Backbiting with senseless slander. Making it up as she goes along.

NO, Paulson mentioned it in a conference. - Backwards Typist

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Also, it's Sec.3901 brought up, but (going from memory here) not voted on yet. It's floating right now.

Article I found on the VAT Tax from CBS..... - Moneywatch

[ In Reply To ..]
April 7, 2010 12:04 PM

"VAT: Will the U.S. Adopt a Value-Added Tax?
Posted by MoneyWatch.com

This article by Cait Murphy originally appeared on CBS' MoneyWatch.com.

The U.S. should consider using a European-style value added tax to help bring the deficit down, said White House adviser Paul Volcker in response to a question from CBS MoneyWatch.com at a panel discussion in New York City Tuesday night. "We have to think about really revamping the tax system," said Volcker, who's best known for successfully beating down inflation while serving as Ronald Reagan's Federal Reserve chairman. The VAT, a levy on all the goods and services you consume, is not a "toxic idea," he added.

Until recently, discussion of a U.S. VAT had been limited to the back rooms of think tanks and cocktail hours of high-minded conferences. But nearly every other industrialized nation has one, and the idea is beginning to spread. In addition to Volcker, the head of the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad (D-N.D), has mused that a VAT has "got to be on the table," and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has murmured sweet nothings about it. In fact, interest in a VAT is cropping up all along the ideological spectrum (albeit more often along the leftish end).

The case for a VAT is simple: The U.S. government's fiscal gap is widening by the hour. The deficit for 2009 alone was a cool $1.4 trillion, and it's projected to hit $1.6 trillion this year. By the end of the year, the Office of Management and Budget says the gross federal debt will stand at $13.8 trillion. As Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan economic advisor who supports a VAT, puts it, "The U.S. needs a money machine." A VAT, because it touches every transaction, is just that: The Congressional Research Service estimates that each one percent of a value-added tax would raise $50 billion. That's real money.

To be sure, no one expects a VAT to join the tax code this year or next. But what about by 2020? The odds narrow sharply. "There's very little chance in the next few years," says Brian Harris, a senior research associate at Brookings, a left-of-center think tank, "but a substantial chance in the next decade or so." And Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at the right-of-center Americans for Tax Reform, who loathes the idea, says of the VAT, "I think it's coming, in the next five to 10 years certainly."

What's to Love and Hate About a VAT?

About 150 countries have a VAT. It comes in different shapes and sizes, ranging from 5 percent in Japan to 25 percent in Sweden. It's easy to see why it's popular: As a broad-based tax that's easy to collect and hard to see, a VAT can rake in a lot of money.

A VAT can be assessed in several different ways. In the most common method, the VAT is assessed on a good at each stage of production and distribution -- when the raw material is sold, when the product is manufactured, when a store stocks up, and when the consumer buys it. When a business calculates its VAT payment, it deducts the tax paid at the previous stage, based on records every company along the chain keeps. That's one reason the VAT is considered highly efficient -- it's hard to dodge since each link in the VAT chain keeps an eye on the rest.

This process effectively hides the VAT from open view -- unlike state sales taxes, the VAT is buried in the price of the good, not assessed at the cash register. But make no mistake: a 10 percent VAT would raise the cost of everything 10 percent. (High VAT taxes back home are one reason that Europeans love to shop in the U.S.) A VAT is also relatively simple to administer, so its "dead weight" -- the distortion it imposes on the economy above and beyond the price of the tax itself -- is minimal.

The VAT's efficiency in raising money is also why some oppose it. Even if a VAT started at a low level, say 5 percent, it's easy to increase the rate, as Europe has proved time and again. And its very simplicity and lack of visibility -- no tax returns, no obvious hurt at the cash register -- raises suspicions that a VAT is a stalking horse for higher spending. "I think America has prospered because the general level of taxation has been lower than Europe," says Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute, who prefers spending cuts to new taxes. "I don't think we should go in this direction."

The VAT also comes under attack for being regressive. Because lower income people spend a higher portion of their earnings, it may hit them particularly hard.

The Best of the Bad?

Despite long-standing political opposition, the VAT is starting to get attention for the simple reason that it may be the best among several bad options. A useful rule of economics is that if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. Current U.S. fiscal trends are unsustainable. At some point, even Congress will recognize this fact and be forced to act. It has three options.

Tax the rich: Always a popular idea, but the math doesn't add up. Top tax rates are already likely to go up to almost 40 percent. An increase much above that is counterproductive, reducing incentives to work and invest while creating incentives to find tax shelters and other ways to avoid paying. And the income tax well is neither wide nor deep enough to fill more than a small piece of the $13.8 trillion hole. Ditto for taxing big business more heavily. The U.S. corporate tax rate (35 percent) is already among the highest in the world. Raising that is an excellent way to reduce competitiveness.

Cut spending: If government spending were brought into line with revenues, new taxes wouldn't be needed. But that isn't happening. Ellis, of Americans for Tax Reform, points out that even if federal tax revenues return to their 40-year average of 18 to 20 percent of GDP (in 2009, it dipped to about 15 percent), the spending promises on the books for 2010 and beyond start at some 25 percent of GDP. That number is hard to knock down because the majority of federal spending is for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which are set to grow briskly as baby boomers retire. No one in either party seems interested in taming these leviathans. "It is almost literally impossible to close the gap on spending alone," says Michael Linden, associate director of Tax and Budget Policy for the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Find new sources of revenues: If more juice cannot be squeezed from the income and corporate tax code, the logical alternative is to tap a wider base. And the logical way to do that is to pass a VAT. Alan Greenspan, for one, considers the VAT "the least worst way" to narrow the budget gap.

Neither party shows enthusiasm for taxing you if you are not a plutocrat. President Obama has pledged no tax increases for 95 percent of the population, and most Republicans flinch at the "T" word in any form.

(Interestingly, though, many GOP economists favored a VAT in the 1980s, and it was Margaret Thatcher who introduced one to the U.K.). But crisis can create opportunities for reform, and America's fiscal position is close to crisis. This may be the opportunity to take another real crack at our complicated and inefficient tax code, something last done in 1986.

A VAT could be a useful part of a larger reform. For example, in his book, 100 Million Unnecessary Returns, Columbia law professor Michael Graetz proposes a 10 to 14 percent value-added tax, but earners making less than $100,000 would pay no income tax at all, and other income and corporate taxes would be reduced. That's just one idea. Press the buttons of almost any tax wonk in Washington and a different plan spits out; a VAT is part of most of them.

Americans as a whole did not squawk when spending rose during the Bush administration, and in electing Barack Obama, they voted for bigger government. At some point, the politics we have voted for have to be paid for. A VAT is likely to be part of the answer."

Thank you for this helpful info and its thorough - and logical analysis.

[ In Reply To ..]
Doesn't sound much like the "sky-is-falling" initiative Bachmann and the pubs are trying to make it out to be. Guess we are supposed to just sit around condemning and complaining about the deficit instead of considering initiatives addressed at reduction and correction.

"logical analysis" -what a joke. Yeah, its the only logical - thing left after O tripled the deficit.

[ In Reply To ..]
Its ridiculous that you even defend him anymore. Most Americans can see right through him these days. However, it may be too late. He is KILLING our economy. Of course, his stimulus bill kept unemployment down -NOT. His HCR will probably do the same thing. How pathetic.

So I take it you did not read the article and are only interested - in venomous spew.

[ In Reply To ..]
Discussing the pros and cons of the VAT tax has absolutely NOTHING to do with supporting Obama. It's an academic discussion on an economic concept.

Talking Obama in relation to the economy is fair game! - HappyDuck

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People want to go after Bachmann as if she fictionalizes everything when it is the Obama lover who lives in dreamland. We are currently headed in the same direction as Greece. Obama is making it all worse. We need to deal with his FICTIONAL numbers!

The subject is value added tax, not you overblown false - apples to oranges predictions.

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A tax system that is already used in over 150 countries to reduce deficits.

Sec 3901 of what? Mentioned in a conference - is a far cry from active legislation.

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Can't get a single article of any substance on a Google search. Wonder what percentage of ideas "floated" in conference actually make it out of there and into real live bills?

Answer - Backwards Typist

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This has not come up for vote yet. It was referred to the committee to study it. That's why I'm watching to see what happens.

Title X: Value Added Tax And National Health Care Trust Fund

Sec. 1001:

H.R.15
Title: National Health Insurance Act
Sponsor: Rep Dingell, John D. [MI-15] (introduced 1/6/2009) Cosponsors (None)
Latest Major Action: 1/6/2009 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

SEC. 3901. IMPOSITION OF TAX.

(a) General Rule- A tax is hereby imposed on each taxable transaction.

(b) Amount of Tax- Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the amount of the tax shall be 5 percent of the taxable amount.

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